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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22576279">would anybody recognize</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity'>luninosity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Actor RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Chocolate, Films, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Rating May Change, Sebastian's Interesting Taste In Movies, Sex-Related Thoughts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 11:00:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,329</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22576279</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian doesn't mind watching movies by himself. Not everyone <i>likes </i>obscure Finnish art-house movies about lumberjacks, right?  Except someone else has joined him in the theater, this time...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chris Evans/Sebastian Stan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>259</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>would anybody recognize</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by Toby Hemingway's fabulous comment on Seb's instagram about that "same look you [Seb] give when I [Toby] want to watch transformers part 37 instead of some obscure Finnish film about a 1-eyed lumberjack.” I couldn't resist. Apologies for any typos; I also wrote this VERY quickly! It felt oddly easy to write, too - I think my writer-brain has missed these guys. :-)</p><p>I'm marking this as complete for now, but there MIGHT be a chapter two - depending on time/whether it takes shape in my head properly. If there is, it's <i>probably</i> Chris POV and is basically their date, which turns into all the sex, with lots of laughter and teasing about lumberjacks and movie trivia.</p><p>Title from Unwritten Law's "Rest Of My Life," this time.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sebastian, clutching his soda and his cookie dough candy bar, settled into his seat. Glances around. After a second, stretches out legs, lounging. No one’s here; he’s alone in the tiny art-house theater.</p><p>Alone. That’s…a word.</p><p>The word echoes from the aged-gilt ceiling, and the amiable cushions of the seat. His choices of moviegoing snacks sympathize too. He should probably be eating carrot sticks and water—but he’s <em>just</em> wrapped filming for that sci-fi action prestige-television limited series, he <em>likes</em> chocolate and sweetness, and he’s allowed. He feels pretty good about his body these days, in fact. Good balance of working out, eating well, not denying himself small pleasures, not stressing too much about making himself be or look like something he’s not, but being healthy. And happy.</p><p>He takes a sip of soda. Lets his eyes shut briefly in sugary indulgent bliss.</p><p>Nobody else is in the theater. He’s not surprised. Not a huge audience for obscure Finnish films about a one-eyed lumberjack and his story of self-reliance in the frozen winter. Sebastian’s friends’ve already sat through it once with him, and he’s grateful.</p><p>They’d offered to come along again, when he’d said he wanted to see it a second time, to get swept up in the chilly glorious cinematography and the clean sparse storytelling. He’d known from Toby’s expression, Chace’s slumped shoulders, that they’d really rather be at the latest entry in the Transformers franchise, which is getting terrible reviews but has lots of adrenaline and explosions.</p><p>Sebastian doesn’t even mind adrenaline and explosions. He wouldn’t mind seeing that. He just…really, really wants to see this one again. To live in that world, to appreciate the delicate surgeon’s touch with just the right edit, just the right gaze, just the right amount of silence.</p><p>He’d told them to go and have fun. And they’d laughed and offered, again, to come along with him. And he’d said no.</p><p>He knows his friends love him. He also knows they’d come with him out of obligation, and they’ve already put up with his taste in movies the first time around.</p><p>He unwraps the end of the chocolate. Regards it pensively. He’s not <em>not</em> content. He doesn’t mind being by himself. He honestly doesn’t.</p><p>It’s better than forcing his friends to be here just for him. It’s better than having to smile while wanting to talk about the metaphor of sunlight on an axe-blade and solitude, while his friends visibly and audibly try to think of something nice to say about this thing Sebastian likes. Toby had in fact fallen asleep, the first time.</p><p>He doesn’t mind being here alone. He just…</p><p>He just wishes that he wasn’t.</p><p>He wishes, on his chocolate bar and the shooting star of the theater’s logo up on screen, for someone to talk to. Someone else who genuinely likes this film, not pretending out of a sense of obligation and friendship. Someone who’d see it twice with him.</p><p>That’s asking a lot. He knows.</p><p>He licks chocolate from a finger. The lights dim even more. There’d only been one trailer, for a Russian film about cosmonauts, and Sebastian’s excited about that too.</p><p>At least if he’s here alone he can lick his fingers and consume chocolate and stretch out his legs—which are long, sometimes inconveniently so—and not worry about someone spotting Sebastian Stan, decently recognizable actor, quietly out and bisexual but currently single and thus available, generally well-liked hardworking star of <em>Political Jungle</em> and <em>Soldier of Winter</em> and <em>Measure of a Man</em>, and presently dressed for comfort in jeans and a blue sweatshirt and a NASA-logo cap because his hair’d been a disaster area post-shower.</p><p>He sips more soda. Revels in sweetness and decadence and the hint of naughtiness as it slides over his tongue.</p><p>The screen shimmers. Opening studio credits. The beginning. He perks up a bit more. Forgets about his friends and the hint of nagging loneliness.</p><p>Motion happens. Not on screen. In the theater. Someone coming in.</p><p>Sebastian blinks, sits up a bit more, can’t quite see the guy in any detail. Tall, bearded, nice shoulders. <em>Very</em> nice shoulders. Slender waist, below a blue bomber jacket that looks a lot like the one in Seb’s own closet back home. Stylish <em>and</em> warm, a good choice.</p><p>The guy actually comes all the way up and hovers at the edge of Sebastian’s row of seats, which, okay, is the perfect height, but also there’s a whole theater to pick from, so Sebastian’s just a little grumpy. The man’s come in partway through the opening, and is now eyeing him as if Sebastian’s somehow taken the exact seat he wants, and no matter how hot he is in dim theater lighting, Sebastian has no plans to move.</p><p>Well. That’s not exactly right. Part of him hates disapproval; part of him really, really, likes tall broad-shouldered guys with firm chests and muscles and thick cozy beards, and both of those parts kind of want to leap up and then drop to his knees and apologize for taking Hot Guy’s seat.</p><p>Another part of him, the bratty mouthy sarcastic part that more often comes out around friends or attractive older dominant people, gives Hot Guy a dazzling smile and deliberately wraps lips around the soda-straw and sips.</p><p>And swallows. <em>And</em> licks lips after.</p><p>Hot Guy makes a sound—it’s a flustered pink-cheeked sort of sound—and hastily takes a seat. At the end of Sebastian’s row, though not right beside him, fortunately for Sebastian’s ability to watch the film. At least he’s already seen it once.</p><p>Hot Guy is even hot in profile, in dark lighting and the wind-whipped snowstorm happening on the screen in front of them. Hot Guy also looks vaguely familiar, which Sebastian can’t quite figure out. Not an actor, but someone in the industry? Someone he’s seen?</p><p>He’ll have to try to figure it out later. Maybe Toby’ll know, or Chace, or Will. Between them, Sebastian’s friends possess encyclopedic knowledge of Hollywood over the last six decades.  For now, he’s here to see his movie.</p><p>So he does.</p><p>And he loves it. He loves the artistry of it all: the writing that can carry a film with almost no dialogue, the acting that can convey desperation and determination and silent commitment through a shift of shoulders, an expression, a change in the set of a jaw. The directing, which builds tension not through firework displays but through character and choices, and a deep examination of inner strength and physical hardship and the ongoing struggle of finding peace with oneself.</p><p>He <em>does</em> love it. He’s paying attention: as an actor, as the shy creative writer he doesn’t admit to being—maybe someday he’ll let someone else see it, but not yet—as a lover of film and the medium and the possibilities of it all. He takes mental notes. He dives into story. He devours sugar. He’s aware of each sense: the sweetness on his tongue, the catch of his breath during the dangerous tree-felling sequence, the slight chill in the theater, potentially for effect. He’s aware of…</p><p>…of the man a few seats over from him. That presence. Those shoulders.</p><p>Hot Guy is also paying attention to the film, and leans forward and draws breaths and gets tense at all the right places. Sebastian notices. He can’t not notice. He’s oddly aware of every nuance from the side, as if his whole body’s attuned to just that frequency somehow.</p><p>Maybe it’s because they’re the only two people in the theater. Maybe it’s because Hot Guy seems to genuinely appreciate the film. Maybe it’s because Sebastian hasn’t had a date in literally over a year, because filming schedules suck, and maybe it’s because he and Hot Guy both seem to realize at the exact same second that there’s a masturbation scene in this film and they’re sitting three chairs away from each other.</p><p>The Lumberjack—the film doesn’t give him a name, which Sebastian’s friends’d called pretentious but Sebastian himself kind of likes, that mythic nameless quality—lies down on his bed. Alone, staring at a grainy black-and-white photo of another man, a casual laughing shot—he slides a hand into his pants. Begins to fondle himself.</p><p>It’s not a long or terribly explicit scene, but it is clear and undeniable, what he’s doing, and the camera dispassionately watches his face as he orgasms. Sebastian, inadvertently watching the moment alone in a theater with Hot Guy beside him, feels his own face flush. His cock twitches in his jeans. It wants to be touched; he wants to be touched. A hand slipping down into his pants, just like that—</p><p>He crosses his legs. Tries to shout at his heart to slow. No more caffeine. Or sugar. Because that’s the problem. Yeah.</p><p>Hot Guy’s lips part, and he takes in a tiny breath, as Sebastian’s legs move and cross.</p><p>Sebastian resolutely does not stare that way. Watching the damn movie. Which he wants to see. Right. Yes.</p><p>The next forty minutes are a highly specialized form of torture, as The Lumberjack takes on a forest, goes out stoically to do his job, says nothing when drifting into a camp and hearing news about modernity, progress, new machines. Sebastian hears it all and feels it all and watches him go back to his work, his life, and gets caught up all over again in the simplicity and starkness of the film; he also wants to scream, because his whole body’s prickling with awareness and a sort of confused low-level arousal and a bewildering self-consciousness about crinkling candy wrappers too loudly while also wildly wanting someone with an attractive masculine beard and that cuddly blue jacket to scoot over a couple seats and wrap an arm around him and soothe his restlessness.</p><p>With some beard-burn on his throat. Or a hand on Sebastian’s cock. Or just fingers casually slipping into his mouth for him to worship. He’s not picky, really, he’d take any or all of that.</p><p>He just about groans out loud, which fortunately is covered by the on-screen avalanche.</p><p>Hot Guy glances at him, then back at the screen, and apparently gets riveted by cascading snow and a cabin buried, a story covered up, a character lost to the wilderness he’s lived his whole life in.</p><p>The film ends with a crew finding the cabin, The Lumberjack’s diary, his home—but not the man himself. Vanished. A mystery. Sebastian loves that: the uncertainty, the spinning possibilities, the questions of genre. A ghost story? A tall tale? A simple true story with a simple man’s body, never recovered? He adores the complexity.</p><p>He wonders whether Hot Guy sees that too. The room for so many other stories.</p><p>The thought’s warm, despite all the snow.</p><p>And, Sebastian realizes, the warmth is nice. Like being…</p><p>…not alone. In this theater, with this movie, this afternoon.</p><p>The credits roll, and neither of them moves; the lights come up. Sebastian blinks, pulls off his cap, runs a hand through his hair. His cock shifts in his pants: not exactly hard, but not wholly soft either, for some reason hyper-aware of the motion of his body, the rub of his briefs, the restriction of denim, the flavors of chocolate and soda on his tongue.</p><p>Hot Guy sits up a bit more, then stands up—energetic but fluid, someone who knows how to use those muscles—but hesitates, poised at the end of the row. He also runs a hand through his hair, mirroring Sebastian’s own gesture; Sebastian stands up too because that seems to be what they're doing now.</p><p>He picks up his trash, of course. Considerate. The nice thing, as a guest in this theater.</p><p>Hot Guy’s mouth curls into a smile, also very nice and approving and so tempting with the beard. Sebastian stares, and tries not to stare.</p><p>“Nice of you,” Hot Guy says, and Sebastian’s brain, which is not working, says, “What?’</p><p>“Cleanin’ up.” And, oh, just a hint of an accent, East Coast, Boston; and oh Sebastian’s always had a fatal weakness for accents, the same way he loves languages and words and good writing and linguistic playfulness. “Lots of people don’t bother. What’d you think?”</p><p>“Of lots of people? Or of my movie theater candy choice?” He deliberately eyeballs his candy bar wrapper. “I approve of my own candy choices. Obviously.” Oh, hello again, bratty version of himself. “Um. Sorry.”</p><p>“For what?” Hot Guy’s grinning. “You should get to have what you want. No, I meant the movie. What’d you think?”</p><p>“Um,” Sebastian says again. “I like it. I mean…I really like the dialogue, I mean the lack of dialogue, I mean I love the way nothing’s over-explained or over-written, everything’s <em>doing</em> something, and I love the openness of the ending and how it plays with genre, and I love the complicated emotions—he’s not exactly a good guy, with that past, but he’s someone you care about anyway, and—and I could go on for a while, you know what, never mind.”</p><p>“I like it too,” Hot Guy says, as they stand on movie-theater steps looking at each other, while Sebastian’s clutching a soda cup and a candy wrapper. “I love the direction and the editing and cinematography. What you said, about everything doing something—no shot’s ever wasted or just playin’ filler, it’s all important. I wish I could be that good behind a camera.”</p><p>“Oh. You…are you a director?”</p><p>“Somethin’ like that. Or I’m trying to be.” Hot Guy holds out a hand. His eyes are deliciously blue, a deeper more saturated hue than Sebastian’s own horizon-on-an-overcast-morning complicated color. “Chris Evans. Nice to meet you.”</p><p>“Oh fuck,” Sebastian says out loud, because, again: brain not functioning.</p><p>Chris Evans. Up-and-coming critically-acclaimed director Christopher Robert Evans. Only two films under his belt so far—three counting the short documentary about rescue dogs—but all near-universally praised by audiences and reviewers alike. Chris Evans directs movies about relationships: not big blockbusters, but tender and intimate, full of love and longing and very human multilayered emotions.</p><p>Sebastian does recognize him now. They’ve even been in the same room at a couple of industry parties, awards shows, that kind of thing. Never in any kind of proximity, though.</p><p>Chris’s grin wobbles a fraction. He’s still holding out his hand. “Well…hey…normally I take guys to dinner first, but if you’re up for it…? I mean, that’s a joke. Totally.” The Boston accent comes out more on that line. Nervous. Like his eyes.</p><p>“You,” Sebastian says, and then, “<em>oh</em>,” because, hey, Chris Evans is into guys, and isn’t <em>that</em> good to know, and then, “You actually <em>did</em> like it. The movie. None of my friends wanted to come with me, not that that’s their fault, it’s not their thing. Oh fuck, sorry, hi, I’m Sebastian. Stan. Sebastian Stan.” And he grabs Chris’s hand.</p><p>Or he means to. He’s holding a candy bar wrapper. Which means that now Chris Evans is holding a candy bar wrapper.</p><p>They both consider this for a second. The wrapper crinkles in silver merriment at their plight.</p><p>“So,” Sebastian says eventually, “an avalanche would be nice right now.”</p><p>“Nah.” Chris reaches over and takes the soda cup too, right out of Sebastian’s suddenly loose grip, collecting everything into the other hand, and then gently takes Sebastian’s hand. Sebastian’s thoughts give up on rationality for the foreseeable future. “Wouldn’t want you disappearing on me. Not when I can talk to you about that ending and that editing. Kinda curious about what else you have to say. And I know who you are, y’know. I’m a fan. Loved <em>Soldier of Winter</em>. What you can do with just a couple lines and your eyes and the way you stand…so fuckin’ good. Loved you in <em>Measure of a Man</em>, too, the one that just came out.”</p><p>“You did? I mean…so did I. Filming that story. Being part of it.” Sebastian’s distracted. Chris releases his hand as if unconsciously reluctant about it; Chris’s fingers in fact gently caress his wrist while letting go: rubbing over pulse-point, grounding, apparently curious about the heat of Sebastian’s skin, lightly dominant. They both recognize this at the same instant; Chris’s fingers freeze.</p><p>Their eyes meet.</p><p>Chris’s cheeks get pink. “Sorry!”</p><p>“It’s okay,” Sebastian tells him, breathless, a little tingly all over. “I, um, I have time. If you. Wanted to talk about this film. More.”</p><p>“Yeah?” The smile starts slow, behind Chris’s eyes; but it spreads at Sebastian’s nod, and the sudden shared delight stretches out to warm the whole universe, in the shape of one small art-house movie theater. “It’s kinda early for dinner, I know, but…maybe not that early? Maybe I could…take you someplace and buy you a drink, something with chocolate, maybe?”</p><p>That one really is teasing, light and bright and happy. Sebastian takes a deep breath, feels Chris’s eyes on him, feels oddly settled under all that blue. He’s babbled about an obscure movie and licked his lips at Chris and said <em>fuck</em> out loud at Chris, and Chris hasn’t run away; no, Chris is smiling at him and seeing all the pieces of him and asking to see him more.</p><p>He does feel like chocolate. Like rich molten happiness, an anticipation of it, all through his veins.</p><p>He says, “Yeah.”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Yeah. Take me to dinner. Drinks. Whatever you want to do with me.” He means that, and he doesn’t look away from Chris’s eyes while he says so; he also waits a beat, then adds, “As long there’s chocolate and discussion of lumberjack cinema involved. At <em>some</em> point.”</p><p>Chris laughs. “Got a thing for lumberjacks? Or sugar?” They fall into step, heading down the stairs. Chris tosses Sebastian’s trash into a bin, casual and perfectly aimed; Chris’s other hand brushes Sebastian’s, once, twice. Sebastian’s hand turns each touch into sparkles.</p><p>He offers, because he <em>is</em> so filled up with sparkles and they have to come spilling out, “Wait, how do you know about my secret fantasies?” and Chris, who evidently appreciates slightly sassy and wistfully wanting underneath that, laughs aloud.</p><p>Sebastian grins, waiting. Chris says, “Oh, really, that’s how it is, huh?” and shifts weight, leans in a little more, gets a breath away: so much presence, so much amused power, filling up Sebastian’s space. Sebastian lets his lips part, knowing he’s being shameless about it.</p><p>“So.” Chris sneaks fingers back to Sebastian’s. More touching. Lots more touching, in a theater entryway surrounded by the puff and celebration of popcorn scents and the old-fashioned marquee sign over the room they’ve just been in. “I’m kinda thinking I take you out to dinner—someplace with chocolate, yeah, definitely, want to see you enjoying yourself—and we see how things go, and if it’s good, we maybe…go back to my place and see about some of those fantasies? Or just talk about movies. Whatever you’re comfortable with, whatever you want to do. I get the feeling I’m gonna <em>like</em> talking about movies with you.”</p><p>“I want that,” Sebastian says. He does. “I like talking about movies with you too. I might have an idea about a script. It’s a sort of fantasy. About a lonely lumberjack, except he finally comes home and finds his guy waiting for him, all patient and loyal and, um…yeah, waiting and…being good, being really, really good…for him. So he gets a happy ending. <em>They</em> get a, y’know…happy ending.”</p><p>He’s pretty sure Chris gets all the layers, the innuendo and the admission of desires and the fluttering stomach-swooping romantic hope behind it; from the way Chris smiles, the way Chris’s eyes get all fond and intrigued and hot, he thinks Chris does.</p><p>“Yeah,” Chris tells him, as they step out into the lobby together, side by side, in sync, “I think I’m gonna like your version, tell me more.”</p>
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